


Drop of Water in an Endless Sea

by treefrogie84



Series: Dust in the Wind [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Temporary Character Death, Episode Tag, Gen, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Language, M/M, Nerd Sam, Recreational Drug Use, Suicidal Thoughts, canon disassociation, subtle references to other shows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 16:35:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 6,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7852762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treefrogie84/pseuds/treefrogie84
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thoughts between hunts, the things we don't see on screen. Episode codas and fill-in for every episode of season 2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In My Time of Dying

**Author's Note:**

> Once more, thanks to DorkilySoulless for cheerleading, coffee, and beta. SolsticeKitten did her normal lovely job at making sure there were commas and matching verb tenses (and also acted as cheerleader when needed).

Bobby wasn’t entirely certain what he expected when the phone rang at 7 am on a Sunday morning. He should have known better than to expect good news, not when the Winchesters crashed back into his life a week ago after years of silence. After all, they were supposed to have shown up overnight… and hadn’t. Sam’s voice caught him off guard all the same, barely suppressed fear making the kid’s voice tight, worry about his brother, the cops, the hospital leaking through. It took far longer than it should have to get Sam to tell him what happened and arrange to meet the kid at the cops’ preferred lot. 

Even then, with some time to get used to the idea, seeing the Impala crushed up like a beer can hurt. He walked around the car a couple of times before looking over at the jackass running the lot, a gawky kid in a work shirt with the name “Phil” embroidered on a patch just above the breast pocket. “You got anywhere else to be?” Bobby snapped, shaking his head at just how busted the boys’ car really was. “Nephew’s going to be upset enough as it is without a stranger rubbernecking.” 

He waited until Phil had walked away before popping the trunk. And frowned. The trunk was a mess, the latch on the lower compartment snapped, leaving the entire contents of the trunk strewn about, weaponry mixed up with tools, salt everywhere. They were lucky the whole thing wasn’t swimming in lighter fluid. 

He sighed and started packing guns into boxes. Last thing they needed at this point was Phil calling the cops and having ballistics run on these.

The Impala herself just wasn’t worth dragging back. Body twisted out of line, every single panel screwed to hell, even the engine compartment was trashed… 

And speak of the devil. “Over here, Sam.”

He watched Sam stare at the wreck. “Oh, man. Dean’s gonna be pissed.”

No way in hell he was going to be able to convince Sam to total it. He was going to end up towing her back to his place.


	2. Everybody Loves a Clown

Dean isn’t sure what to do with himself. Running away to join the circus was something kids did when their parents wouldn’t buy them a hot wheels car or something. Not grown-ass men with a demon to chase. Yet, here they are, picking up trash in Middle of Nowhere, Wisconsin, trying to scrape together enough clues to figure out what’s killing folks.

Watching Sam jump every time he sees a clown lost most of its appeal after the first fifteen minutes, leaving Dean with little amusement other than people watching (and watching the pickpockets work, but Dean’s met better thieves. Repeatedly.) Now he just has the drudgery of sweeping the entire place with the EMF meter, hoping to find a hit.

Really, he has too much time to think. To worry about what happened with Dad, to wish that Dad had bothered to tell him anything beyond ‘save Sam or kill him,’ or write something ( _anything_ ) down to fill in a few blanks. Dean’s read over Dad’s journal more times than he can count, and there’s nothing in there about Sammy being a monster. How could Sam be a monster? He’s afraid of clowns, for fuck’s sake. But what other reason could there be? Unless, of course, it was the demon talking. 

Seems like a pretty demon-y thing to do: tear away his bedrock foundation of taking care of Sammy with his last words. Save Sam or kill him. Without ever telling him what he’s supposed to be saving Sammy from.

No. NOT the time. Make a list of parts still needed for the Impala, start adding up how much they owe Bobby for the tow and parts and workspace. Don’t worry about shit he can’t control right now. Worry about the case in front of them, killer ghost clowns that can gank someone without leaving behind traces of EMF.


	3. Bloodlust

Sam smiles as Dean reloads the trunk and backseat. Nearly a month of Dean putting in twelve to fourteen hour days while getting his car back into drivable condition. A month of helping him etch wards and sigils into the side panels, recreating any symbol they can think of to keep her safe, deep cleaning the weapons, re-evaluating which books were in the trunk. It’s not the first time Sam’s watched Dean empty her out and fill her back up, but it’s the first time he remembers her being rebuilt from the ground up.

He wants to ask. Why hadn’t Dean started doing this professionally when they went their separate ways? Why does he still drive a car that gets 15 mpg on a good tank? But every time he opens his mouth, Dean… pets… his car, or actually looks proud of himself and her. Sam doesn’t remember seeing that look on Dean’s face much growing up. 

If his car gives Dean that much joy, so be it. Sam can deal with it for another year or so, until they’ve found and killed the Demon. After that, Sam will have his own car. Maybe one of those new electric cars that were released last month.

He looks back down at the letter in his hand, almost certainly an acknowledgment of his official withdrawal from Stanford. Another tie to the past, to the world outside of hunting, a future, cut. But it was the right thing to do. Focus on Dean, and the demon, and those nightmare visions. At least by withdrawing properly, he’ll be able to go back when this is all over.

The lie feels bitter in his mouth.


	4. Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things

Sam expected to feel more at his mother’s grave. They’re burying their father after all, or as close as they ever will, the only memorial they can afford. But mostly, he just feels hot. There’s not much shade and the sun just keeps beating down on him. A lifetime of mourning a woman he doesn’t remember leaves him empty of any emotion for her. Even Dad just left him… raw. Maybe he’d used all his mourning when the accident first happened. Maybe he’s still too bitter.

Sam knows their childhood wasn’t all bad, that Dad wasn’t always as terrible as he remembers. But right now? Watching Dean rebuild the Impala again, try to live up to Dad’s standards again… it’s just blotted out the good things. Same as it had at school. Luis or Brady would be telling some story about camping or playing catch and Sam would end up staring blankly at them. No, his dad hadn’t handed down his old mitt to teach him. Or taught him at all.

Not catch with a ball anyway. Knives, hex bags, rope… Dean had taught him catch the way his friends meant it. Dean, or Bobby. Closest he ever got to a normal childhood and it came at the expense of Dean’s.

There’s nothing here to mourn. Mom’s been dead for decades and her spirit finally sent to rest a year ago. Dad sacrificed his life for Dean’s, and his spirit was released when they burned his corpse. There’s nothing here, and yet, it still feels like it was the right thing to do.


	5. Simon Said

The longer this thing with Sam’s visions goes on, the more concerned Dean gets. He can hide it most of the time, by pretending the fear is anger or general irritability. Until the whiskey comes out and he’s had enough to admit that he’s terrified: scared for Sam, scared of his connection to the Demon. If nothing else, the last year has just reinforced how isolated the two of them have always been. It’s unclear if Dad did it on purpose (he totally did it on purpose), but most of their connections are tenuous at best. Most of the hunting community know who they are -- John’s kids -- but not enough to trust them. Or for Dean to trust them in return. And now with Sam’s visions becoming clearer and more frequent, the number of other hunters Dean trusts is down to pretty much just Bobby and Sam.

Dean glances over at Sam, dashboard lights coloring him green. Save Sam or kill him. Right. Because Dad would actually say that. Ever. Another person he can’t trust. At least Dad’s already dead and there’s limited harm he can do.

He almost trusts Ellen and Jo. He really wants to trust Ash. If Sam were still at school, if it was just himself he needed to worry about, Dean wouldn’t have any problems at all. He’d be hooking up with Ash whenever they both wanted, taking Jo on hunts she found, dodging Ellen’s shotgun for hooking up with the wrong kid. 

But… Sammy’s here, with him. Dean still has to protect him above all else. 

Even if Ellen, Jo and Ash are trustworthy, that doesn’t mean everyone at the Roadhouse is. Maybe, maybe, if he and Sam were better known as individuals, maybe things would be different. But hunters are conservative and skittish at best. It makes sense, the job’s nothing but old books, dodging the law, and blood. Outsiders are dangerous, and the unknown usually just wants to kill someone.


	6. No Exit

It’s the first time Sam’s shared a bed with a girl in almost a year and neither of them are sleeping. Of course, they’re not doing anything else either. Tossing and turning, trying to avoid their own thoughts and demons. He should have smoked a bowl before bed after all. 

He can feel the unresolved anger in Jo’s frame next to him, still pissed at the implication that she can’t do the job. Dean always has had a way with women. Sam sees his point though: why would anyone do this when they could be doing anything else? Jo’d let it slip earlier that she’d been in school for forestry, because she can use her existing skills there, before dropping out and moving back home.

This isn’t a life he’d wish on anyone, let alone someone who thought she could make a difference. She could make that same difference by going into law enforcement, or psychiatry, or any number of fields where having a trained professional around to help hunters would be amazing. 

He’d thought, before he took off for Stanford, that he’d be the one to solve the coordination problem. Figure out a way to get the collected knowledge of folks like Bobby out onto the web, so more people had access. Hell, computer science had been his declared major for that reason. He was going to put everything online, where any hunter could access it, no gatekeeping, no relying on the acquaintance of a friend of a cousin of a drinking buddy. He had thought he could have both, just under someone else’s thumb, or even better, only his own. 

Until Dad told him to get the fuck out and never come back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have zero basis for Jo's major, she just reminds me a lot of a friend I had with that degree. Sam the computer science major makes a lot of sense.


	7. Usual Suspects

One day, Dean knows, all these arrests are going to come back to bite him in the ass. He’s legally alive again, for better or worse, but that also means they need to go back to avoiding the FBI and staying the fuck out of Missouri. At some point, it’s going to be more trouble than it’s worth to keep Winchester. Honestly, that point should be now. But he just…

Even when all he had was Baby and his name, there was someplace he belonged. He has more aliases than friends, can’t remember the last time he rented a room or picked someone up under his own name and yet… that single piece of plastic with the name his mama gave him, _his_ name. He can do anything, be anyone as long as he as that one touchstone. It’s what separates him from the grifters he knows. Tara might be able to keep track of herself while on the grift, but he can’t. Ask him to be someone else for longer than the space of a single hunt, and he can’t do it. Maybe he just isn’t creative enough, who the fuck knows, but he can never be anyone else long term.

But that brings him back to the same problem: Dean Winchester needs to disappear, has needed to since the shapeshifter in St. Louis. But how do you kill the only name that holds any meaning for you? Maybe he should hit up Tara again, get some help from her. It’s probably worth owing her the favor. Last he heard though, she was in Eastern Europe on some long con. He could probably get ahold of her, but it’ll be a pain in the ass. She won’t thank him for pulling her out just because he’s having a personal crisis anyway. And trying to find someone else he can trust when he’s in this much trouble? Yeah, no. He’ll take his chances brazening it out on his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tara= Tara Cole. Because Leverage and Supernatural totally exist in the same universe.


	8. Crossroad Blues

Sam was eleven the first time he ran away. Twelve years later, he still isn’t sure if John even knew about it. It was during that strange four month period when Dean was missing and no one but him seemed to care. Bobby and Pastor Jim pissed at Dad, Dad angry with Dean, and no one but Sam worried about _what happened_ to Dean. So Sam had saved what pocket money he could, stole away on one of Bobby’s trips to town, and made it as far as the downtown bus station before the old sheriff found him and marched him back to Bobby’s.

He tried again when he was seventeen, sick of Dean and Dad’s rules, of Dad’s drop-in parenting, of everything in his life. He’d stopped helping out with household expenses with what he earned at his shitty part-time job, stuffing every cent into the ammo box he used as a piggy bank, deliberately not noticing when Dean started working nights again at the end of the month. He’d saved enough for three different bus tickets- to Flagstaff, Poughkeepsie, and Vancouver- to hide his tracks. He just wanted to disappear. It’d worked too. For two glorious weeks, no overbearing older brother to appease while finishing up his college applications, no need to explain why the stamps were disappearing so quick, why he needed $50 today, $40 tomorrow It was the best vacation he’d ever had.

Until Dean showed up, with two black eyes and a limp, and insisted it was time for “Wes Janson” to come back to Eagle Nest, finish high school, and stop fucking around.

Sam totally understands why a bunch of dead enders would sell their souls for something better, trying to escape their lives. After all, a demon deal, to most folks, is literally something for nothing. Hell, he can’t even say he wouldn’t have tried it back in high school if he’d thought about it. Something for nothing, without even having to leave home.


	9. Croatoan

Dean jerks awake before Sam does, Sam’s jostling and harsh breathing even more noticeable when they’re crashing in Baby than when they’re sharing a motel room. He’s already sitting up, shrugging his heavier flannel on (awake, the car is _cold_ , even for early November in… fuck. He has no idea where they stopped last night. Northern Kansas?) when Sam finally struggles awake.

Fuck, this sucks. Dean’s never been good at just sitting by when Sam’s hurting, but these visions or whatever are light years beyond watching him deal with playground bullies or calculus. And they’re getting worse, every one hurting Sam more. He makes a point of showing Sam the same rough affection as normal, even if he would do anything to stop the visions from happening at all. Because he can’t go beat up Sam’s brain, or the past. About the only thing he can do is keep trying to find the damn Colt so he can take down the damn Demon who started this whole damn thing in the first place...

Dean wrangles the cooler out of the footwell and contemplates digging through their duffels for toothbrushes before giving it up as a bad job. Easier to just drive until there’s coffee and just clean up then. Maybe Sam will be able to get some more sleep that way. Dawn is still hours away, and coffee is… forty-five minutes at best (He thinks. The northern hills of Kansas always fuck him up.) Plenty of time for Sam to pass back out before their lives go to Hell for a few days. Because that’s what these visions always mean.


	10. Hunted

Sam knew better than to steal Dean’s car when he left. It’d started as just needing air and time to deal with shit. How could Dean… How could Dad even think that he would ever hurt anyone? That he would go dark side?

What sort of instruction was save him or kill him anyway? Dropping that on to Dean like it wasn’t going to shatter his entire world? The way Dad died had been weird from the start, this just made it more hinky. And Dean’d been sitting on this for nearly six months.

Save him from what? How considerate to drop that without any other information. It’s pretty clear that he’s connected to Max, Andy, and Ansem somehow. But it doesn’t make any sense. Sam never heard of a curse that worked like this one, not outside of high fantasy novels at any rate.

Data. He needed more data. Trying to work out what the fuck Dad was thinking was a pointless endeavour. One is happenstance, two is coincidence, three is a pattern. He had four points, enough to form a search profile.

Sam had paced around the motel a dozen times, trying to work out what to do next. Dean wanted to stay loners, stay away from anyone who might hurt Sam. But if Sam could track down other folks like him, with powers and dead moms, maybe they could work out what the Demon wants. Work out where he is. 

Dean’s friend, Ash. The Roadhouse was only about eight hours away, he could make that by mid-morning. Maybe Ash can find more people like him, can help them figure out what Dean’s supposed to be saving him from.

The idea of Dean killing him was laughable. Wrong person for that job.


	11. Playthings

Jesus Christ, dolls are creepy. Always have been. A few too many late night showings of Child’s Play and Dolls probably didn’t help either, but… They’re creepy as fuck. And this entire place is _filled_ with them.

Mysterious deaths, Victorian houses, lots of dolls. This hunt ain’t exactly rocket science, but Dean’s exhausted and Sam’s got a broken wrist for weeks yet. Easy is the order of the day. Dean sighs as he looks over at Sam’s drunken sprawl.

Of course, easy doesn’t happen to them. Sam’s freaking out about what Dad said and Ava’s disappearance isn’t helping. She’s connected to the Demon somehow and whatever that bastard wants with his ‘special’ children, it can’t be good. Particularly with the nonsense that Gordon Walker’s been spreading. Maybe it’s time to hit up Bobby, figure out if he can spot the connection they’re missing. Ash is good, but he just doesn’t have the experience tracking demons that Dad and Bobby do.

Dean smirks. Ash is plenty good at everything else to make up for the lack.

At any rate, more data isn’t getting them anywhere. And if Sam is at the point where he’s drunkenly begging Dean to kill him, it’s time to call in the big guns.

For that matter, it’s time to wake him up. Dean leans over and slaps at Sam’s foot where it hangs off the bed. “Wakey Wakey, Sammy! Time to start the day!” He smiles at Sam’s hungover groan. He might be creeped out by the hunt, and worried about the promise that Sam hauled out of him, but that doesn’t mean he can’t enjoy being a jerk to his hungover little brother.


	12. Nightshifter

Sam isn’t sure if it’s better or worse that the new reason he can’t sleep is, ‘how the _fuck_ are we going to survive if we’re on the FBI’s most wanted list?’ It’s a change from visions and nightmares at least, just anxiety and terror instead of pain. But he’s pretty sure that he’ll miss nightmares soon enough.

At least they have enough supplies to be okay camping in the Impala tonight. They can crash in her for a couple of nights while they scramble for a place to recover, enough time for the news cycle to move on and forget them. They just need enough time to get some new identities made up, to catch their breath. Sam’s just not sure what they can do about their faces, those are kinda permanent.

They’ve had hunts go catastrophically wrong before, but this one definitely takes the cake. Ron’s actions, his death...those are almost certainly their fault. More empathy, more truth, and Ron might still be alive. And the FBI… well, they wouldn’t be cutting things this close at least. Hell, the only upside of this whole thing is that now they know how close the Feds are.

Once upon a time, he thought he had escaped this life, if not unscathed, than at least with a clean record. Possibly the biggest lie he’s ever told himself. He’ll never get out. Now he’s a wanted fugitive. What would Jess think of him now?


	13. Houses of the Holy

A fucking spirit, of course. And… coincidence, sure. God and angels may exist, but they’re not going to be handing out judgement in fucking Rhode Island. Dean knows this, he’d just… lost sight of it for a moment.

Dean can’t explain how Father Gregory knew the things he did. Surely jackasses didn’t just confess murders and shit to their priest? Hell, he knows that confession is supposed to be confidential, but there has to be some law about serious shit getting reported to the cops. What’s the point of having a neighborhood dive bar if priests and mobsters and cops can’t all quietly drop hints in each other’s ears?

Sam would know. Probably both civil and canon law.

Fuck. Hell, maybe the idiots _were_ telling their priest. That’s the only reason Dean can come up with for why Gregory knew what he did. Because, even if angels are watching over everyone, there has to be a better way than the ghost of a priest and some gullible parishioners. After all, killing because God told you to went out with the Renaissance as a reasonable defense.

All the same… the way that guy died… he’d never have believed it if he hadn’t been there. It was spooky. But figuring out if it was really God or His angels? Way beyond Dean’s pay grade. He’ll leave that for Sam and the theologians. His job is purely to dig a hole before adding some salt, accellerant, and a lit book of matches. It’d be nice if angels were real, to have someone else fighting the good fight. But someone trustworthy would have reported it by now if they were. Instead, it’s just them, and other hunters like them.


	14. Born Under a Bad Sign

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember that "canon disassociation" tag up there? It's there for a reason, and this chapter is it. I'm adding extra warnings just in case because I'm worried about it.

Sam didn’t panic, initially, when he woke up and his body didn’t move the way he expected it to. It wasn’t the first time he woke up from a nightmare/ vision into sleep paralysis. But then… it didn’t pass. And he was up and moving and… not in control of his own body.

This isn’t a vision. Those come in a terrifying welter of sound, smell, and sight; sensations coming at him faster than he can even begin to process in real time. This… he isn’t getting everything- no smell, no taste, nothing tactile- and what he _is_ getting is muted to near incomprehensibility, completely desaturated. No, this is the opposite of a vision.

Something else is going on, something is in him, something is preventing him from being in control. He’s on the verge of panic except his body isn’t responding the way it should. 

Sam watches as his hand rises to knock on the door. The foreign presence brushes against him, terrifying. It, she, is pushing him to the outskirts of his body, compressing him into a tiny not-corner of his brain, cutting off his senses one by one. He has no defense against this. No fantasy novel, no therapy technique, nothing has ever prepared him for this. Nothing to defend against a foreign entity in his body, riding him around.

He can’t control his breathing, can’t fall back on the Jedi calming breath thing he picked up as a kid hanging out on Star Wars forums.

The man who answers the door is unfamiliar, a stranger. The relief he feels is followed by a tidal wave of foreign Other, compressing him further and further, a tiny pinprick of consciousness until…

Nothing.


	15. Tall Tales

Bobby stood at the window, coffee in hand, and watched one of the yard cats tear across the gravel after a squirrel. He’d been fielding calls for hunters all day, dishing out lore and impersonating various personnel: FBI, Homeland Security, CDC, half a dozen alphabet soup agencies. Some days it felt like every hunter in the country not only had his number, but felt personally obligated to use it every time they screwed up. 

As if on cue, one of the phones on his wall began to ring. He turned away from the window with a sigh, cat and squirrel forgotten. At least this call was on his personal line. “Singer.”

“Hey Bobby, it’s Sam. You gotta minute?”

“Yeah, Sam. What are you and your idiot brother up to now?”

“Well, uh… Dean and I need some help on a hunt. Any chance we could convince you to come give us a hand?” Sam sounded downright sheepish.

Bobby sighed. He really needed to get some stuff done around the house and yard, but if the boys were calling for help, they weren’t seeing shore. “Where you at? Still in Wisconsin?”

“Nah, Springfield, Ohio now. Thought it’d be best to give Jo and Ellen some space.”

“Alright. Email me what you’ve got. I’ll get on the road in the morning.”

“Thanks, Bobby. I’ll email you later tonight.”

Sam hung up and Bobby stared at the phone. Right. He loved the boys, but they were something else. If he was going to spend all day tomorrow driving, he needed to pack tonight. At least Sam and Dean would have most any weapon they’d need.

He was getting too old for this shit.


	16. Roadkill

Dean still isn’t sure about this hunt. Sure, it needs to be done, but something about it has been bugging him since they heard about it. No matter what Sam says, it’s not because he’s worried about the Impala. She’s a tough broad and can take whatever a ghost throws at her. 

He just can’t get over the feeling that this hunt is going to go bad. Jonah Greely, by all accounts, wasn’t a nice guy even before his death, and it’s doubtful that fifteen years as a ghost have improved his disposition. Molly had been a decent enough person, though, and they’d found no evidence that the accident was anything other than bad luck. All the same, getting in the middle of a two-spook grudge match? He’s had better ideas on a five-day bender.

Dean glances at the map again and then at the folder Sam had tossed him with all the research. Well, if something is going to go wrong, they at least have all the information available. Nice part about relatively recent deaths: everything is online, including death certificates, obits, and the original newspaper write-ups of the accident. There’s no burial information for Greely, which will undoubtedly come back to bite them in the ass, but surely his wife will have marked the grave before disappearing.

Fuck this. It’s just a couple of ghosts, no big deal. Quick gank, then off for a week in Vegas, just him and Sam. Maybe even a chance to earn some legitimate cash for once.


	17. Heart

Sam was shocked when he got the email from Luis, asking if he’d be out in California anytime soon. Mostly because Sam was pretty sure that his college friends had all forgotten about him, or at least relegated him to that set of stories you told about the good old days. He didn’t blame them, not after the nastiness with Becky and Zach last year.

But sure. No reason they couldn’t cut Vegas week short by a day and drive into San Francisco. Luis had been his best friend after Jess, especially once Brady had gotten caught up in drugs and shit their junior year.

Sam glanced over at the clock on the bedside table. Not even 10 AM. Dean would be stumbling in soon, wanting lunch. He started tossing their stuff into bags. He’d look for a hunt to justify the trip later. Right now, the idea of chatting over a couple of beers with someone NOT Dean sounded like the best plan ever.

He loved his brother, really, but even after a lifetime of living in each other’s pockets, the closer than normal quarters because of a massive manhunt were _not_ making Dean easier to get along with. Even when they were both trying. So yeah, beer and maybe a bong load with some friends from school sounded good. Dean could find his own companionship for the evening.

He shot Dean a text about the change of plans before replying to Luis’ email. Vegas to San Fran took about eight hours, less with the way Dean drove. They could potentially meet up tonight even, though Sam suspected tomorrow would be better. No need to rush too much.


	18. Hollywood Babylon

This ‘hunt’ on a movie set was supposed to be a laugh. A way to pick back up the good vibes from their interrupted Vegas trip. Not several layers of insanity wrapped up in Hollywood egos. Even if he’s having a hell of a time playing at being a PA, this hunt… It’s supposed to be a _joke_. Dean had thought it was a joke anyway, when Ash called to see if they knew anyone out this way.

Fuck, he misses Ash. Well, misses might not be the right word. Dean likes the guy’s company, appreciates his skills at the keyboard, and loves his skills at wake and bake.

Dean shakes his head, no time for getting distracted. Figure out which area cemetery all these bodies are planted in. Gank the ghost, leave the West Coast behind forever. Find some way to make Sammy feel better about werewolf girl, that does not involve large amounts of alcohol or pot. 

Anything to make life suck less. The PA gig was entertaining him, getting access to all parts of the studio and stages, but Sam isn’t getting over last week. Time to go home. Maybe spend a few days out at the Roadhouse, it sounds like Ellen’s mostly forgiven them for Dad’s fuck ups. Let Ellen mother them a bit, get Sam to sleep in a real bed, or at least some pot that doesn’t reek of morning glory. Scratch a few itches with Ash… Just some nice R&R from their vacation. 

He runs his finger down the list some more. Here. Death certificate has Elise Drummond buried in the Hollywood Forever cemetery, space 432. Huh. That’s the same cemetery as Johnny Ramone. Maybe they’ll have time to go see his grave too before the night’s entertainment.


	19. Folsom Prison Blues

“Dean, does it bother you at all how easily you seem to fit in here?”

Sam’s sure that some day he’ll get to the bottom of Dean’s screwed up head. After all, it’d only taken one psych class in school to realize they are both beyond fucked up: years of therapy, possibly someone’s dissertation levels of fucked up. He can lay out the buzzwords that apply to them, memorized in case he ever gets real bored and wants to ruin his day (week, month, year). He’s even titled the article he’ll never write in his head: The effects of early childhood trauma, alcoholism, and transient lifestyles on children. 

He’d figured out how terrifying his brain is to civilians during the first therapy appointment Jess had forced him into. And he’d had an easier childhood than Dean. Hell, he’d _had_ a childhood.

Sam doesn’t remember the first time he’d been left in only Dean’s care. It’d been commonplace by the time he was six though. Perhaps the thing to wonder isn’t why Dean feels so comfortable here, but instead why Dean didn’t have any of this on his record when Sam had looked him up at Stanford.

Because of course he had looked up Dean and Dad both as soon he’d had access to the appropriate databases and been drunk enough to dare. Dad’s record had been a disaster from start to finish: grave robbery, theft, mail fraud, murder, arson, everything Sam had expected. But Dean? A couple of drunk and disorderlies and a speeding ticket. Almost like Dean had done most of his hunting under a different name… until he’d picked Sam up. 

Which just layers on the guilt. How many weekends has Dean spent in jail, with no one he trusted to come bail him out before Monday morning arraignments?

Sam doesn’t often feel guilty for taking off for college, for trying to have a different life. But this, watching as Dean navigates with the same deft touch he uses playing pool or charming folks working in the city records office, this makes him feel guilty. No idea why, it’s not like Dean would be safer or in a different line of work with Sam by his side, but… he wouldn’t have been alone.


	20. What Is and What Should Never Be

Dean is silent next to him, watching the fields around them pass. It’s been a long time since Sam has seen him this quiet, not bitching about Sam’s driving or music choices, not looking for the next case, nothing. Just silence that Sam isn’t sure how to break.

He can see why this one would be hitting Dean so hard, even if it didn’t have many of the characteristics of cases that normally hit too close to home. But having your perfect life ripped away had to hurt, had to hit deeper than a standard monster hunt. One day, Sam will find out exactly what happened, support his brother in his need, but for now? He’s pretty sure what his brother needs is just someone in his corner.

And he can use a bit of a break too. Some time to just be brothers. The past month has been absolutely brutal, they’ve crossed the country twice, and lost as many fights as they won.

Maybe staying put while Dean rebuilds some blood volume and does whatever it is that he does to lock things down was the right plan. Sam glances over at Dean, ready to ask if he was ready to stop for the night. But Dean is leaning his head against the window, intently watching the stars above them. No, he needs to keep driving, at least until Dean relaxes enough to sleep.

One of them might as well, and God knows Sam isn’t going to be. Not with the almost headache-pressure thing he has going on. Whenever this vision got here, it is going to hurt like no other. But there’s nothing he can do to hurry it along besides hope that he isn’t driving when it hits.


	21. All Hell Breaks Loose

Dean’s perfectly aware that what he’s doing is unhealthy, thanks Bobby. He’s going to continue drinking steadily while watching Sam anyway. What the hell else is he supposed to do? 

Sam’s dead.

His entire reason for continued existence, gone, wiped out because some jackass didn’t know better than to trust demons.

He’s spent so long looking after Sam, so long trying to protect him. Twenty-three years of his life, wasted. The one thing he’s ever been good at. 

But maybe this was fair. He’d killed his dad, his fuck ups killed Ash and Ellen. Give him a chance, he’ll probably get Bobby and Jo killed too.

And Sam.

Dean might as well have put the knife in Sam’s back himself. Didn’t figure out that Sam was in trouble fast enough, took him too long to figure out where the demon had taken him, too long to get there. He’s too slow on the uptake, too slow in general, and now Sam is dead because of it.

So, no, Bobby, he doesn’t have any plans to take care of Sam’s body beyond what he’s already done. Dean’s going to sit here and wait. Wait for the inevitable, wait and drink until he can pretend the 1911 in the bag next to him isn’t loaded for a specific purpose. And if a different plan presents itself every time he raises the bottle, well, that’s just the whiskey talking.

Without his brother there’s no point. Sam ditching him for Stanford had hurt, and not just because Dean had missed him. No, he meant literal hurt, too, all those times he’d come out of a hunt busted up because Sam wasn’t there to watch his back. 

If he could haul Sam back somehow, like he’d hauled Sam back from Stanford, he would. He’d give anything. Any damn thing. Except…

He downs another mouthful of whiskey. Tries to remember being angry about Dad’s deal, tries to lock on to how much he hated his dad for trading his life and the Colt. Tries to remember the sick guilt in his guts about what went down with Roy Le Grange. He comes up empty. That’s all he is now. Empty. And anyway, it’s not like he can even make a deal to save Sam’s life now that he’s dead, is it? 

(What, you wouldn’t give your life for your brother? Are you less of a man than your father?)

A deal, a kiss, ten years. 

It can’t hurt to try. The bottle thuds, empty and hollow, onto the table. If Hell is smart, they won’t send anyone to deal. If they do, well, the only way to win is to wager.

What the hell else is he supposed to do, having failed the only job that matters?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I _know_ and I'm not sorry. Blame the writers and John Winchester


	22. All Hell Breaks Loose II

Sam could accept Jake looking at him like he was a ghost or something. Dean had said that he’d been left for dead, another failure of the demon’s plan. Jake didn’t know them, and even if he had been in a war zone two days earlier, it’s an easy mistake to make during high stress situations. He and Dean both had done it before, and they’d been fighting for a lot longer than Jake.

No, Bobby freaked Sam out. Bobby, who had shown less and less open affection as they had grown, had come in from a chat with Dean with tear tracks on his face. If he had just been touch and go for a while, Bobby wouldn’t have reacted like that. Hell, he probably would have insisted that Dean take him to a hospital, FBI, cops, and warrants be damned. Easier to break out of prison than… break out of Hell.

Oh. Dean. What damned fool thing had he done this time? Except it wouldn’t be foolish from Dean’s standpoint, would it? They’d both known that even under direct orders from Dad, there was no “or kill him” in that final directive. All Dean heard, all Dean would ever hear, was “save Sam.”

Save Sam, protect Sam, look after Sam. Dean has only ever had one mission in life, and Sam knows it. So his brother had done the only thing that had garnered praise in the past, the only thing he could probably see to do. They’d seen this pattern dozens of times over the years: given enough knowledge and the right motivation, people no longer cared about some pretty damn important things. Things like the disposition of their soul when they died.

Fuck.


End file.
